Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Idea Of Happiness, the first single off Van She's forthcoming album by the same name, is available digitally today worldwide. The remix package includes edits by Jonti, Herve, SebastiAn, and What So Not.

To say that it's awesome would be a severe understatement. Taking electro and giving it a bit of sunshine, retro sheen and high gloss, Idea of Happiness is a blinding single that looks back to their past but blasts itself forward into the summer. Idea of Happiness is the sort of song you'll be singing all summer long, so you might as well get started now and download it below.

While you're trying desperately to get Idea of Happiness out of your head, Van She's new album will be released in July via Modular.

Buttonhead, a rampaging rainbow of noise-pop with a penchant for polymesmeric song structures and fractured melodies, is a multi-headed beast with one shivering b’glittered body; comprising Ross Blake, Tobias Warwick Jones, Valentina Magaletti, Eloise Goulder and Daniel John Boyle.

The group’s wildly disparate influences of tropicalia, avant pop, spacious psyche, experimental rock, yé-yé and anthemic film music have been decisively distilled into their long-awaited debut album 3D Opera Whale, to be released on London based Horse Arm this coming June 30th 2012. The digital release of the LP is slated for July 30th 2012.

The result is a powerfully uplifting and eccentric array of songs that gently hint at a kinship to bands such as Deerhoof, Stereolab, OS Mutantes, Family Fodder and the like.

Shot through with shimmering, 80s electronic inflections, but with a core that's tangibly human and filled with the wide-eyed awe of stepping into the big city, Zebra and Snake's debut, Healing Music, is danceable and catchy, but with an audibly beating heart.

"It's pop but then it's healing music - that's an idea that's carried through every song" say the band. "In the background there's always something healing or comforting. The atmosphere in our music connects with that phrase; it's like a beautiful place that's happy and safe but where there are hidden tragedies."

The result of two years work - recorded in the snatches of time available at Berlin's Kaiku Studios and constantly evolving - Healing Music is both a labour of love and an impressive marker of just how far the Finnish duo have come.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Veterans from opposite ends of the Earth, The Stanleys are a band that started out as nothing more than a little idea. Sometimes, though, a little idea can take you all over the world. The Stanleys are a good indication of the world and times we live in.

Meeting and forming the band over Myspace, Australia's Mark Di Renzo (Gigantic) and Jamie Horsburgh collaborated with Norway's Tomas Dahl (Turbonegro), eventually hitting studios in Oslo, Paris, Perth and Sydney to track their first generation of songs.

Leading with the title-track as first their single, The Stanleys have put Always out into the world because it's as definitive, at this early stage, as anything else: straight-up classic power-pop with one eye on the girl and the other on the car. Fun music.

This is a classic sounding tune in the truest definition of classic sounding tunes. It's a pre-summer anthem if there ever was one and if you dig folks like Urge Overkill you'll find your summer crush starts below.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Stereofunk, that guy from Dresden, is back with his second attack Radio Robotic, on New York City's Coco Machete Records. Radio Robotic, features a colorful cast of guest features from TelevisionRecords' Maral Salmassi, Coco Machete's D' Secret SVC & Razor Cain as well as Stereofunk's own discovery Miu. Combine that with Stereofunk's reverence for 80s disco, original electro, retro lounge and club rockin' house music this new album takes you on a shimmering tour of synthetic nightlife through the ages. It's a whole night out packed into 50 minutes and it's a killer.

In a world of tuneless wobbles, squiggles and dirges it's nice to know that someone still appreciates the value of a good song. Sure Radio Robotic does it all, but it keeps it within the parameters of what makes a song good. You can unleash all the electronic mayhem in the world but if you can't remember it an hour later what's the point? That's something that this dude from Dresden gets and that's why we love Radio Robotic.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Mirror Talk is the creative partnership of 5 disparate, culturally varied artists; a gay father, a straightedge punk kid, a Nuyorican street kid, a Jazz-fusion session player and a college professor. Together, they aim to create richly detailed, fully-earnest pop music in the chimerical, song-focused and technologically adventurous vein of their heroes; Prince, The Knife, Beyonce, and Peter Gabriel. And the voice; a singularly soulful and weightily large charismatic instrument in the tradition of the heroic frontmen of old - Bowie, Mercury, D'arby; capable of a uniquely simultaneous largeness and intimacy, while the band synthesizes choice elements of R&B, New Wave and early Electro into something truly new.

Children of the social-media age, the 5 were brought together entirely via MySpace and Facebook, and established a fast musical kinship during their college years. This kinship eventually turned itself into their debut six song Mirror Talk EP. While thoroughly entranced by the 80's the band attempts to side step the cliches and attempts to marry the future and past into a sonically anachronistic romance, against which they tell an honest story of youthful experience as diverse as the band itself.

Disclaimer

MP3s on the POP! Stereo are available for a limited time only and are intended for evaluation purposes only. If you like what you hear, or read about support the artists by actually purchasing their albums, going to shows, and buying their merchandise.

If you own copyright to one of the songs posted and would like it removed, email us at djpaulpop@yahoo.com.